Sporting Wedding Venues

These days your wedding ceremony doesn't need to take place in either a church or register office, and there is a wide range of alternative venues available. One of the possibilities you may not have considered is the sports stadium, and I have listed some ideas below for you to consider.

No one would have thought of getting married at a football ground a few years ago, but these days many of them have top quality banqueting facilities and can cater for various sizes of wedding party, and can also help with planning the wedding ceremony and reception. Not all football stadia are licensed for the wedding ceremony itself but many are, including Liverpool FC, Everton FC, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United. And it is not only the bigger clubs that can provide these facilities - Walsall FC for example have a comprehensive wedding section on their website and are licensed for civil ceremonies. You can even get married on a match day!

Cricket has followed football in providing new venues for weddings with many of the County cricket grounds now licensed for civil ceremonies, among them being Derbyshire, Kent, Lancashire, Nottinghamshire, Sussex and Hampshire. And now the ultimate venue for a cricket fan is available - Lords. Just make sure that the bride is wearing white.

Racecourses provide a pleasant environment for a wedding, and courses all over the country are licensed for civil weddings so there is likely to be one within easy reach of most places. Possible venues are Goodwood and Bath in the South, Towcester, Southwell and Wolverhampton in the Midlands and Ripon and Doncaster in the North, though there are many other courses to choose from.

There are also golf courses all over the country which are licensed for weddings, and which would provide a nice background for your wedding photos. Some to consider, depending on where you live, are The Mere Golf Club, Knutsford; The Shropshire Golf Club, Telford; Purley Chase Golf Club, Nuneaton; Saidburn Hall Golf Club, Flaxton near York; Exeter Golf and COuntry Club, Exeter and finally Abbey Hill Golf Club, Milton Keynes.